


Someone Like You

by ria_green



Series: The Magician [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Joseph Kavinsky Lives, Love Triangles, Love/Hate, M/M, POV Outsider, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 18:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ria_green/pseuds/ria_green
Summary: Joseph Kavinsky has never met someone like Adam Parrish before.There's hatred, jealousy, and confusion, but there's also respect. And something else.





	Someone Like You

A brief history of Joseph Kavinsky:

Joseph Kavinsky is born to crime royalty. His mother comes from a long, illustrious line of British crime firms, and his father is an upstart Bulgarian mobster who made it into the big leagues and secured his legitimacy by marrying into his mother's aging but still respected family.

Both are former Death Eaters, but former Death Eaters clever enough to avoid Azkaban by pulling a Malfoy towards the end of the Second Wizarding War. In other words, by using copious amounts of blackmail, money, and influence to claim they were under the Imperius to get away with a mere slap on the wrist.

Joseph grows up under the cold neglect of his mother and the firm hand of his father. He's going to kill his old man one day when he's strong enough, but he won't deny that he's learned important lessons under his tutelage.  

One, a Kavinsky gets what he wants. Everything in the world has a price and method by which it can be obtained.

Two, people are terrible, so trust no one. The only reason predators like his mother and father are willing to show their backs to each other is due to the restrictive Unbreakable Vows that were part of their marriage bond. How romantic.

Three, blood is everything. Muggles are lesser beings, closer to animals than humans. Halfbloods are the spawn of traitors who married out of their class. Muggleborns, or Mudbloods as a Kavinsky would call them, are flukes in the natural order, given access to powers they can't possibly handle as well as those who were bred for it.

Joseph Kavinsky believes these truths for a long time.

 

The first time Joseph questions those lessons is when he meets Ronan Lynch.

A Kavinsky can have allies and followers but not friends. Propopenko and his Dream Gang are followers, and the Malfoys and Notts are allies.

He's not sure what category Ronan falls into. He just knows that he wants him there.

But even when Ronan is by his side, Joseph knows he doesn't have him fully.

For one, Ronan is best friends with Richard Gansey, and there's nothing Joseph can do about it. His family is powerful but they can't compare to the Ganseys, so unfortunately Richard Gansey can't conveniently disappear the way other hindrances in his life do. Instead, Joseph and Gansey share an unspoken agreement to avoid each other and to allow Ronan to travel between the two of them freely.

For another, Ronan doesn't agree with Joseph on the third truth.

When Joseph casually refers to Hermione Granger as a Mudblood, Ronan snorts. "That 'Mudblood' is a war hero. She could destroy you, wandless and blindfolded."

Joseph has an explanation for that. "She's with Potter. His mystic Dark Lord-defeating powers probably rubbed off on her. And everyone learns quickly in a war! It's either that or die."

Ronan gives him an unimpressed look.

"We'll agree to disagree," Joseph says.

So Joseph continues to disparage those with inferior blood, and while Ronan doesn't participate or approve, he doesn't actively protest either.

They're in a comfortable status quo. Joseph tugs and cajoles, and Ronan is scathing but complicit.

Joseph isn't happy about his inability to conquer Ronan since it defies rule one. However, Ronan is unconquerable by anyone, so he isn't too bothered by it.

Until a little Mudblood boy proves him wrong by conquering Ronan without even trying.

 

 

The second time his truths are challenged is when he meets Adam Parrish.

Perfect little Adam Parrish who never even heard of wizards and witches before he stepped into the Hogwarts Castle but somehow manages to trounce Kavinsky and all his classmates in every single subject.

"Who cares?" Ronan says. "It's not like you're a Ravenclaw; what do class ranks matter to you?"

"It's the principle of things. He's a Mudblood! He shouldn't be this good at magic!" Kavinsky hisses.

"What, no excuses about wartime or Potter-induced mystical powers this time?" Ronan asks mockingly.

Kavinsky seethes and vows to lay a fresh layer of dirt over Parrish's trunk.

 

 

The third, fourth, and so on occasions his truths are challenged are also Parrish's fault.

A tired but grimly triumphant Adam thumps a bouquet of blood roses on his desk, and Joseph is grudgingly impressed. After his loss, he isn't allowed to call Parrish "Mudblood" to his face anymore. All he can do is mutter spitefully to the Dream Gang as Parrish befriends the most influential student in their year (or is it the other way around?), earns accolades from professors and students, and worst of all - increasingly draws Ronan's gaze.

As the years pass by, Ronan grows closer to the "Gangsey" (as the Hogwarts students call them) and farther from Joseph and the Dream Gang. He won't hear a word against Sargent or Parrish anymore. He nearly hexes Joseph for calling Parrish a Mudblood, a word he would have shrugged off with only a slight wince in the past.

Ronan has changed, and Joseph knows who changed him.

He's seen Ronan vulnerable before. Oh, never for him. For Joseph, all Ronan has distrust and reluctant amusement at best. But for Matthew, Gansey, or even Sargent, Ronan lets his harsh edges soften.

Ronan with Parrish is something else entirely.

Ronan looks at Parrish like he's the most fascinating person in the world. Like he would set cities on fire for Parrish's rare smile. Like he would set himself on fire for Parrish - and gladly.

Joseph hates it. Why Parrish, he wants to demand, why not me?

But Joseph knows why. Because his eye is drawn to Adam Parrish too. 

He promised to leave Parrish alone but that doesn't mean he can't notice him. And Joseph is observant.

Parrish is the most talented student in their year. It's not just that he's good at studying. It's as if magic runs through his veins. (Joseph has mostly given up on his third truth at this point. Parrish is a Mudblood, and Parrish is superior. Clearly, blood purity isn't as indicative of talent as his parents have always believed.)

Yet despite his magical power, Parrish holds himself like he expects the world to attack him. Like good things are temporary and he can't smile too widely or laugh too loudly because the moment of happiness will pop. Like he knows, intimately, Joseph's second truth - people can't be trusted.

Parrish tenses up around grown men. Not men with kind eyes and soft voices like Professor Potter but older men with sneers on their lips and violence in their hands. Men like Joseph's father.

Looking at Parrish is sometimes like looking into a funhouse mirror. Joseph doesn't enjoy looking into mirrors. He takes after his father, after all.

Yet. It's not just unwilling empathy that Joseph feels for Parrish.

All that time spent observing Parrish, trying to figure out what it was about him that fascinated Ronan.

Well.

Joseph may have done a little too good of a job at understanding how easy Parrish is to love.

He knows he'll never have Ronan because Ronan loves Parrish. He also knows now that he'll never have Parrish either. His first rule has been thoroughly disproved.

And what a shock that was, the realization that he wanted someone like Adam Parrish. It's the first truth Joseph figured out on his own. A new truth, to replace all the ones that he's lost.

It's one Joseph will be taking to his grave.


End file.
